Vice President Biden’s family adopts Miss. shelter dog

A dog abandoned in Mississippi got the first of many rides on Air Force Two, the plane of Vice President Joe Biden, last week.

Peggy, a nine-month-old lab mix, was taken in by Barb Mauller, who operates Little Mountain Rescue in Eupora. Because abandoned dogs are so hard to place in Mississippi, Mauller sends most of her dogs to Nantucket Safe Harbor for Animals in Nantucket, Massachusetts – where the Biden family spends Thanksgiving each year.

“Susan Richards, one of our board members, took Peggy into town Friday afternoon,” said Pamela Murphy, president of the Massachusetts shelter. “Peggy was wearing an ‘adopt me’ scarf, and she was stopped by a family on the street.”

Richards did not know it at the time, but the family was that of Beau Biden, the son of the vice president and Delaware’s current attorney general. Beau and his wife Hallie’s two children, Natalie and Hunter, fell in love with Peggy that day on the street, Murphy said.

After taking a card from Richards Friday afternoon, the Bidens showed up at the shelter Saturday morning to adopt the dog. That was when shelter employees realized who the family was.

“They filled out an application just like everyone else, and their references even checked out,” Murphy said laughingly.

The Bidens, who have changed Peggy’s name to Indi, already had a lab mix named Liberty. The dogs reportedly met for the first time aboard the plane.

Mauller, who runs the Little Mountain Rescue inside her own home in Eupora, drove Peggy about 1,500 miles from Eupora to Nantucket — something she does regularly. Murphy said that the Massachusetts shelter has place about 300 dogs from Mauller in 15 years.

“I thought it was pretty cool that the Bidens were the ones who adopted her,” Mauller said. “But I think it’s just wonderful that people open their hearts and homes to these dogs.”